I am delighted to be here today to open the International Spinal Research Trust's annual conference, because it gives me an opportunity to thank all those associated with the Trust for their valuable contribution to medical research and to say how much importance the Government attaches to the research that the Trust funds. I would also like to welcome the many researchers who are attending today's event, some of whom have travelled long distances to be here. I hope that it is a productive day for all of you.
Medical research charities like the Trust make an enormously valuable contribution to research and therapy in this country. Of all G7 countries, the total expenditure In 2000 (OECD), UK total Public Non-Profit Expenditure was $2.2bn. In the USA it was $10.6 bn. Further details in briefing, Flag J. of the UK's Private Non-Profit sector is second only to that of the USA. In the Wellcome Trust, for example, we have the world's largest medical research charity, funding a wide portfolio of programmes. We have the newly formed Cancer Research UK and the British Heart Foundation.
And we have many smaller charities such as Spinal Research, which draw their strength and inspiration from the victims of debilitating conditions, from their friends and family, and ultimately from the wider public. These charities support crucial, high quality, well targeted research, and play a key role in the broad base of UK medical research, in partnership with Government, industry and the wider academic community.
Spinal cord damage is, of course, a major problem, and some 800 people in the UK suffer the effects of spinal cord damage each year. This means that there are about 40,000 people with such injuries in the UK at any one time, with costs to the UK attributed to at least £500m per year.
Worldwide, it is estimated that over 92,000 people each year survive a traumatic spinal cord injury and begin a "new and different life" bound to a wheelchair for 40 years or more. By 2005, close to 500,000 new injuries will swell the total world population of people living with spinal cord injury induced paralysis to over 2.5 million.
I would like, therefore, to praise the continuing hard work and dedication of the International Spinal Research Trust in pursuing their mission and providing real hope for those who suffer from such devastating injuries.
In the last twenty years, the Trust has played a leading role in some remarkable advances in the field of spinal research. As in many exciting areas of biomedical research, such as genomics or stem cells, our advancing knowledge promises to revolutionise the way disease is detected, treated and prevented.
But we still have some way to go to ensure that the cures of tomorrow are effective, safe and available to all who need them. New therapies will not appear overnight. But there is a lot that can be done to improve the lives of those who have sustained such terrible injuries. Many approaches are being pursued with promising results, such as minimising damage just after injury and regenerating tissue. Stem cell research also holds great potential for repairing spinal damage and is one of the most exciting and promising fields of contemporary research.
Indeed, exciting work at King's College London funded by Spinal Research has succeeded in restoring movement to rats paralysed by spinal injuries. And researchers in Glasgow have characterised novel properties of olfactory ensheathing cells, which may explain their unique regenerative properties.
Many challenges lie ahead in translating the promise of basic research from animal and laboratory models to the clinic. To make this possible, the Trust has had the foresight to set up two initiatives, the Research Network and the Clinical Initiative. Together, these activities will ensure that patients with spinal cord injuries will receive effective treatments as soon as possible.
Increasingly, in taking the subject forward, multidisciplinary research will be increasingly important, and the gathering of expertise here today is a fine example of the quality, strength and diversity of talent in the field of spinal research.
It is the Government's role to provide an optimal environment where such world-class research can proceed. This Government has recognised the need to increase the funding our scientists receive so that they can optimise the contributions they make to wealth creation, to solving the environmental problems and to improving the health of the nation.
Following substantial real terms increases for science in earlier Government Spending Reviews, this July we announced that, over the next three years, the Science Budget will increase by an average of 10% per year in real terms.
The Research Councils will receive an extra £300 million by 2005-06 to maintain growth in the volume of science. These extra funds will be allocated across the science disciplines, and I am sure that biomedical research will be among the beneficiaries. In addition, university research will benefit from a dedicated stream of capital funding for new building and equipment worth £500m a year by 2004-05.
The package of funding that the Government has announced will support continued progress. But the amount of money the Government provides can never be enough to fund all the top-quality research that we have the opportunity to do in the UK, and bodies like the Spinal Research Trust will, therefore, continue to play a vital part in funding pioneering research. The Spinal Research Trust makes a valuable and extremely important contribution to medical research on spinal cord injury, and I would like to take this opportunity, on behalf of all the patients who are given hope and whose lives are improved by their work, to thank them, and the scientists they support, for their dedication and the excellent research they do.
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